The Nets coaching staff disagrees. According to Nash:
“We had breakdowns all over the place,” Nash said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do. We know that. We’ve got to improve with our communication, improve with getting guys into better condition. We feel positive that we can improve defensively, but it’s got to be a priority for us.”
Also, my feeling is that if an opposing player is hot, (1) hopefully you have a great defensive player who can deny him the ball, and (2) players can get hot more easily if you play bad defense on them earlier in the game, as its gets them into a rhythm.